Monday
Feb152010
New hobbies!
February 15, 2010 * * * * * Posted by: Frida 
At some point about the time the kids’ turn 14-15 they have their own activities and friends and don’t need as much parental control as before. They can be home alone for a day and manage by themselves. This has just happened in our household and left the parents aka me and husband in a limbo. We have pondered and pondered but we never came up with a new and interesting hobby.
Like the vultures in The Jungle Book we have been saying.
Me: So what we were going to do?
Husband: I don't know, what'cha wanna do?
Me: Look husband, first I say "what were going to do?" then you say "I don't know, what'cha wanna do?" then I say "what we're going to do" then you say what'cha wanna do" let's do something.
Husband: Ok. What'cha wanna do?
Then one day my husband said what about Geocaching? I didn’t have to think for long as I had read about it and thought it sounded fun. For you that haven’t heard about it before it’s a kind of treasure hunt with help of a computer (at home) and a GPS in the field. There are about 900.000 geocaches (hiding places for the treasure) all over the world and an estimated 3.5 million geocachers.
We first used our car GPS but it wasn’t accurate enough so we decided to go for a more advanced one. It also has a Geocaching feature in it to make it more suitable for this. How do you do it then? Well you log on to the website and look for caches near your own coordinates. There are ordinary ones, mystery caches and virtual caches and so on. You download them to your GPS and then it’s time to get out there and find them.
We have found 33 caches since Christmas Day 2009. Two of them are mystery caches. The first mystery cache was an adventure. We did ponder over the quiz for quite some time until our sons came up with a possible solution. It wasn’t the right coordinates but close. After thinking for a while longer we got a green light from the geochecker. Saturday before last we were going to a nearby town to do some shopping. As the cache was on our way, we decided it was time to go to the given coordinates to log a visit. Each cache has a container with a pencil, logbook and small items you can trade. They come in different sizes from micro to large. This was a small container.
As we stopped beside the road we realized that we had to go in to the forest. Husband asked if he should tag along. Oh no I said boldly I’m not a wimp I can go there myself, as it only was a few meters to the cache and it was beside a cave. (I don’t like going in the forest by myself) Then I took a big step to get over a ditch and sunk to my waist in meter deep snow. I tried to keep my dignity and crawled out and was finally up. But I still had to walk in knee deep snow. Laughing to myself I thought it’s better to have my ski clothes on at this kind of adventures.
Once there the GPS beeped to alert me. I searched for a while and got a bit upset as I didn’t find it and I didn’t want to go in to the cave alone. I went back through the snow and waved to my husband to come and help. As he steps out of the car and takes his first step in the waist deep snow I was already back and the cave and there it was right in front of me. I found it! I hollered and turned around and there he was, standing in the ditch with snow up to his waist. Oops! But as the good husband he is he didn’t say nothing as we logged our visit and hid the container again. When we got back to the car he finally said. You’re not a wimp?! We both laughed and went home for a change of clothes before driving to the nearby town for some shopping.
We are really enjoying this and so far we have seen lots of things we never had seen before. Many caches are placed in an area of interest and contain info about the area. It’s a perfect way to learn about new cities and historical sites. It also involves lots of walking and a whole deal of photographing. It's a good excuse if the cache is situated were there are lots of people. I do some photographing and husband looks for cache containers :-)
If you like to know more about geocaching, read about it on this website. http://www.geocaching.com
The image above is from the small island Loppan (The Flea) in Lake Mälaren. This cache is rather easy in the winter when one can walk on the ice out to the island. What you can see on this picture is the Strängnäs Cathedral.
Reader Comments (12)
This sounds so fun! Who can turn down treasure hunting. But I'll wait until the Olympics is over until a give him the idea. :-))
You had me glued to every word of this post, Frida! You had me at "Hello," as we'd say. Now I want to look up the site and see if by chance there's any treasure nearby here in Holland. We don't have a car yet, but once we get one, that would be a blast. Geocaching and photo hunting. I love it! Thanks for the inspiration. :)
That cathedral takes my breath away, BTW. Are you saying one of the caches was there? When there's no ice, do you have to get your own boat to find the cache? So many questions, so little time.
Such an interesting and fun hobby. I know exactly that feeling of looking at your partner/husband once the kids have grown and saying - what next??? And then that you've found something you love to do together..it's just perfect!! Am going to check-it-out..see if they have such a thing here!!!
Yeap, you got me ! I need to find out more about this geocaching.
Love your picture, beautiful Sweden !
I did this last year for the first time with our neighbors and kids and it was great fun!
Before my son had three children he went geocaching quite a bit. I went with him on a few hunts. GEOCAHCING IS FUN! And, as you say, very interesting as well. Great hobby!
woo hoo. i love to hear about couples finding a passion other than just each other. a family that plays together stays together and i believe that is true.
Love geocaching. And I will admit that before I knew what it was, I muggled a cache. Don't tell anyone.
holey moley -- that sounds awesome and i think i've found a new hobby to share with my sweetie now that he's got a gps...i love exploring...
I've often been really interested in trying geocaching but am too cheap to buy the GPS! :) We just got one for our car and I was excited that we could use it for geocaching but realized it's not going to work for that - oh well. The whole idea of geocaching and leaving something for the next geocacher who comes along really appeals to me. So glad you and your husband have taken the leap :)
Geocaching sounds like fun. My son's in-laws are into it and their geocaching adventures are always intriguing. Fun post, Frida!
What fun!